Staff

Pieter Missiaen

Current project

Pieter is currently working as an FWO postdoctoral fellow on a study of the ancestors, origins and basal relations of Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulate mammals) in the frame of the events around the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

The order Perissodactyla or odd-toed ungulates contains three recent families: tapirs, rhinoceroses and, most famously, horses, a group that is of broad popular interest. However, perissodactyls are also of major scientific importance, and earlier in the Tertiary they formed a much larger and more diverse group with a total of 16 families, including Indricotherium, the largest terrestrial mammal ever.
Perissodactyls appear very abruptly at the beginning of the Eocene (55.8 Ma BP), simultaneously in North America, Europe and Asia. During this early period they had a thriving success, with at least 13 families present in the Eocene. Their abundance, diversity and fast evolution therefore makes them one of the most important groups for the biostratigrapy and paleobiogeograpy of Early Tertiary mammals. Nevertheless, their Paleocene ancestors and their region of origin are unknown, as well as their basal relations, i.e. how the different initial lineages of perissodactyls (stem groups) are related to one another.

Broader scientific framework and other research interests

The latest Cretaceous and the Paleogene period is of particular importance to mammals, because immediately after the K-P extinctions (65 Ma) mammals had an explosive radiation, rapidly filling new ecological niches and reaching a remarkable range of body sizes and morphological specialisations, and their radiation shows their obvious evolutionary success.
The Paleocene-Eocene Boundary (55 Ma) is however marked by the sudden appearance of the first modern mammal orders (Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, Primates and hyaenodontid creodonts), followed closely by the appearance of most other orders of modern mammals later in the Eocene. However, this is also where more paleontological questions arise… What are the phylogenetic and geographic origins of these modern groups? Why did they suddenly appear, and why were they so successful?
Moreover, the research questions on the origin modern mammals are closely linked with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). The PETM is a short-lived climate perturbation, during which temperatures worldwide increased 5-10°C in less than 10.000 years and then recovered again in about 100.000 years. Superimposed on an already warm background climate, the PETM was also the warmest period of the Cenozoic. Both the causes of this climatic event and its ecological and biogeographical effects on mammal faunas are still poorly known, but this event has already been proposed to represent an excellent analogue for understanding the current anthropogenic global change.

During his PhD, Pieter studied the Late Paleocene Subeng mammal fauna from Inner Mongolia. The study of this fauna allowed the description of four new taxa, as well as an better phylogenetic insight of many other taxa. Moreover, in the first integrated paleoenvironmental reconstruction ever made for the Asian Paleogene, the Subeng site was shown to represent an isolated woodland on the open, arid Mongolian Plateau, with important implications for our understanding of migration of Paleocene mammals between Asia and North America.

Pieter is actively involved in the exploration and study of the Early Eocene Vastan fauna in north-western India, that represents the oldest Tertiary vertebrate fauna from the Indian subcontinent. This study has already yielded the oldest lagomorphs (rabbits, hares and pikas) and an exceptional diversity of bats and primates. Other fossil groups are still under study, but already promise exciting new insights.

Other currently ongoing projects include a bilateral Sino-Belgian collaboration on the origin and paleoenvironment of the first modern mammals in eastern and southern China, a French-Belgian research convention for a synthetic study of Paleocene and Early Eocene vertebrate sites of the Paris Basin, and high resolution studies of vertebrate evolution across the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary in the Bighorn Basin.

Main scientific collaborations

This work on Paleogene mammals runs in close collaboration with the Pre-Quaternary Mammal Research Unit led by Dr. Thierry Smith at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.

Pieters current postdoctoral project includes a one-year mobility stay with Prof. Dr. Philip D. Gingerich at the Paleontology Museum of the University of Michigan, with whom he also collaborated for fieldwork and study of the fossil mammals at Polecat Bench in the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming.
The fieldwork at the Vastan site was funded by the National Geographic Society by a grant to Prof. Dr. Kenneth D. Rose of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, with whom Pieter also collaborated for fieldwork at McDermott Butte in the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming.

Ladevèze, S., Missiaen, P. & Smith, T. (2010). First skull of Orthaspidotherium edwardsi (Mammalia, “Condylarthra”) from the late Paleocene of Berru (France) and phylogenetic affinities of the enigmatic European family Pleuraspidotheriidae. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30: 1559-1578.

Missiaen, P. (2011). An updated mammal biochronology and biogeography for the early Paleogene of Asia. Vertebrata Palasiatica 49: 29-52.

Missiaen, P., Gunnell, G.F. & Gingerich, P.D. (accepted). New Brontotheriidae (mammalia, perissodactyla) from the early and middle Eocene of Pakistan, with implications for mammalian paleobiogeography. Journal of Paleontology.

Missiaen, P., Guo, D.Y. & Smith, T. (2005). On foot(bones): The late Paleocene Asian arctostylopid mammal Palaeostylops and its liaison with the South American ungulates. Presented at II CLPV, Rio de Janeiro 2005.

Missiaen, P., Escarguel, G., Hartenberger, J. & Smith, T. (2008). New dental and postcranial remains from a single population of Palaeostylops from the Late Paleocene of the Flaming Cliffs in Mongolia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(3, suppl) p. 103A. Presented at 68h Annual SVP Meeting, Cleveland 2008.

Ladevèze, S., Missiaen, P. & Smith, T. (2008). First skull of the condylarth Orthaspidotherium edwardi from the Late Paleocene of Berru (France) and affinities of the enigmatic European family Pleuraspidotheriidae. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(3, suppl) p. 116A. Presented at 68h Annual SVP Meeting, Cleveland 2008.

Missiaen, P. & Smith, T. (2009). An updated mammal biochronology and biogeography for the Paleocene and early Eocene of Asia. Abstract voor International Symposium on Terrestrial Paleogene Biota and Stratigraphy of Eastern Asia, Beijing.

Missiaen, P., Gunnell, G.F. & Gingerich, P.D. (2010). Insights in the Early Eocene mammal faunas from Indo-Pakistan based on the Perissodactyla from the Ghazij Formation of Pakistan. Abstract voor Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association, Gent.